Page:9009 (1908).djvu/143

Rh and progress was slow, but exquisite from its very slowness. He was greatly delayed by the necessity of parting for long periods with the object of his tenderness.

He had found, in the stone wall of the laundry, which stood a bare two feet from the stone wall of the cook-house, a niche hollowed for a water-pipe; and whenever he feared discovery, or his instinct announced to him the coming of a search, he dropped his file in the niche behind the water-pipe. Then for days he would be separated from it, tortured with sudden accesses of fear in spite of his confidence in the security of his hiding-place. But he had become wonderfully patient, and he stood the test well. His purpose burned within him always, without a sputter, fixed, unalterable. He remembered how the murderer of the garotter had waited, days, weeks, months, never letting the desire of his heart light up his eyes, while the garotter passed and repassed him, and on his breast the knife lay, not quite ready. A patience such as this was now with him always, a patience he felt inex- Rh